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TELEVISION / RADIO

TELEVISION / RADIO; Groening's New World, 1,000 Years From Springfield

By ANITA GATES

Published: January 24, 1999

SANTA MONICA, Calif.—
MATT GROENING looks like an ordinary guy, sitting at an ocean-view table at Shutters on the Beach. At 44, he has a little gray, a little paunch and the attention to fashion of a successful hardware salesman (knit shirt and khakis). People at the hotel's restaurant are paying more attention to Tom Hanks, who is having brunch with a large group across the room. But Mr. Groening (pronounced graining) is the man who created Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and the laconic infant Maggie Simpson, and he is not unaware of how much clout that gives him, especially as he prepares to introduce his first new series since ''The Simpsons'' became a half-hour comedy in 1990.

Selling the idea for ''Futurama,'' which is scheduled for a March premiere on Fox, was a little easier than selling ''The Simpsons,'' he admits. This time ''I basically breezed through the door with Peter Roth,'' says Mr. Groening, referring to the recently departed president of Fox Entertainment.

Still, network executives were a little nervous about the new animated show, because it didn't seem as much like Mr. Groening's first series as they would have liked. ''I told them, 'It is like 'The Simpsons,' '' says Mr. Groening. '' 'It's new and original.' ''

''Futurama'' is set in the year 3000 in New New York City, which is built atop the ruins of the original New York. Ruins? ''Alien invasion,'' Mr. Groening says matter-of-factly. The Empire State Building is still around, but only the top 22 floors and the observation tower. There are no more pigeons in the city because they've been wiped out by owls. ''They're cute owls, too,'' Mr. Groening adds.

The characters in ''Futurama'' have familiar, Simpsonian bulging eyes and overbites but unlike the Simpsons and their Springfield neighbors, as Mr. Groening points out, their skin is not yellow. Any particular reason? ''Evolution.'' And of course there are aliens living in New York, ''just like now.''

One of the show's main characters is Fry, a human earthling who was accidentally frozen on Dec. 31, 1999, and wakes up on Dec. 31, 2999, in a strange new world. His best friend is Leela, a cyclops space-alien woman. They're often seen with Bender, a ''very corrupt robot'' who is not happy with his career programming and wants to be a cook. In the future, ''people are definitely slotted at a very young age because of testing,'' Mr. Groening explains, ''but these tests are right.''

''Futurama'' comes to television in an environment for prime-time animation that is very different from the one ''The Simpsons'' faced. In 1989 there hadn't been a hit prime-time network animated series since ''The Flintstones.'' In 1999, adult viewers have ''King of the Hill'' on Fox; ''South Park,'' ''Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist'' and ''Bob and Margaret'' on Comedy Central; and ''Daria,'' a ''Beavis and Butt-head'' spinoff, on MTV. And at least three network animated series (''Dilbert,'' ''Family Guy'' and Eddie Murphy's ''P. J.'s'') have premieres this month. ''The Critic'' didn't make it on ABC in 1994 but lives on on cable. With this kind of overload, is even Mr. Groening's genius a guarantee of success?

''There are no guarantees,'' says Mike Darnell, Fox's executive vice president for specials and alternative programming (which includes animated shows), ''but I think it has a wonderful shot.''

''We're not looking at animated shows as animated anymore,'' he adds. ''They're just comedy. No matter how much animation comes on the scene, it's going to be survival of the funniest.''

Mr. Groening, who has so far ranked among the funniest, grew up in Portland, Ore., the son of an advertising executive whose claim to fame was the creation of the Jantzen Smile Girl competition, a national beauty contest for a swimsuit company. After graduating from Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash., the young Mr. Groening moved to Los Angeles to become a writer. He was 28 when he began drawing ''Life in Hell,'' a comic strip (sometimes described as ''bleakly humorous'') about Jeff and Akbar, two affectionate fez-wearing look-alikes, and two rabbits named Binky and Bongo. Once asked whether Jeff and Akbar were brothers or a gay couple or what, Mr. Groening answered, ''Whatever offends you the most.'' By the late 1980's, the strip was syndicated in 200 newspapers.

But it was ''The Simpsons'' that changed Mr. Groening's life. The characters began as short cartoons on Fox's ''Tracey Ullman Show'' in 1987. The characters had their own television special, ''Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire,'' in December 1989, followed a month later by the premiere of the half-hour series. By spring, the Simpsons were the hottest names in merchandising and licensing, being compared to other big names of the year like the Teen-Age Mutant Ninja Turtles and New Kids on the Block.

Naturally, everyone was worried when in fall 1990 the show was moved to Thursday nights opposite ''The Cosby Show,'' a solid hit that had been the No. 1 prime-time series since 1985. But the Cosby popularity was slipping, now that several of the show's young characters had grown up, and rather than being vanquished ''The Simpsons'' turned the situation into a ratings war. Both shows lost viewers, and in 1992 ''The Cosby Show'' went off the air. ''The Simpsons'' remained on Thursday nights until 1994, when it moved back to Sundays. It has been there, and Mr. Groening has been reaping the benefits, ever since.

He looks a little more mogul-like after brunch when the parking attendant brings his black BMW convertible and he calls his housekeeper on the car speakerphone to check on whether the waves are threatening to engulf the Malibu house. He drives to the ''Futurama'' office on Sepulveda Boulevard where at least a dozen employees are working on Sunday, even though the premiere is months away. ''Our crunch is six months before it goes on the air,'' explains David Cohen, the executive producer. In the editing room, Mr. Cohen and two other employees are playing various versions of one line: ''Leela, it's real velour. Just let yourself go.'' They are taking the creation of this future world very seriously, he says. One staff person is currently worried about whether the crescent of the moon looks exactly the way it really will 1,000 years from now.

Claudia Katz, the producer at Rough Draft, the Glendale animation studio for the series, stresses, ''It can't just be 'The Simpsons' in space.'' Some episodes will be set on Earth; some won't. A brief film clip, in fact, looks a little like a scene from ''The Fifth Element,'' Luc Besson's futuristic 1997 thriller in which Bruce Willis drove a flying Manhattan taxi.

Around Ms. Katz, a building full of people (Mr. Groening calls it ''Santa's workshop'') are hard at work, drawing ''Futurama'' characters following guidelines in the 72-page Character Construction Model Pack like ''Try to avoid showing Fry's gums'' and ''Bender's body is shaped like a Slurpee cup.'' One scene shows a 31st-century product advertisement: ''Robo Fresh. Designed by a robot. For a robot.''

A tour of the office also introduces new characters like Professor Farnsworth, who looks like a cross between Mr. Burns and Grandpa Simpson. There are new revelations about other characters, like Fry's habit of keeping a 20-pound bag of Bachelor Chow in his apartment and the news that Bender the robot, according to Ms. Katz, drinks, smokes and has ''a horrible pornography problem.''

Mr. Groening sums up the ''Futurama'' personae. ''It's a small group of characters who really don't fit in'' in the legislated conformity of the future, he says. ''They do what they want to do.''

So the message of the series is about the value of individuality and being true to oneself? Mr. Groening nods, then quickly says, ''I can't believe I have a message.''

Photos: Matt Groening, creator of ''The Simpsons'' and ''Futurama.'' (Amy Rachlin/Fox)(pg. 39); Leela and Fry, above, take a ride in New New York City in Matt Groening's new series, ''Futurama.'' (Fox); Right, the title character of ''Dilbert'' with his associate Dogbert. (United Feature Syndicate); Below, Stewie the matricidal baby in ''Family Guy.'' (Fox)(pg. 38)